de velopment policies have largely failed, the most visible of whichis the crisis of the Rio institutions, particularly theUnited NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Ott 2009,Kaufmann and Müller 2009, Conca et al. 2008, Wissen 2010).

In contrast to sustainable development, it seems that the greeneconomy is attractive for relevant socioeconomic actors. Technol -ogies to develop renewable sources of energy or electric vehiclesare available, and microelectronics play a much more importantrole today than 20 years ago. And there is another dynamic, i. e.,the current financial crisis, the major cause of which is an enor-mous amount of over-accumulated capital that seeks new invest -ment opportunities. Financial capital has discovered agriculture,soil, infrastructure, and environmental protection as a new fieldof investment, thereby creating opportunities for a few, threaten -ing the living conditions of many, particularly in the global South(Zeller 2010, Dörre et al. 2009).

In sum, the concept of a green economy seems to promise anattractive orientation out of the crisis of neoliberalism that be-came manifest in 2008 and has hit vulnerable countries and so-cial groups.

The So-called Green Economy

It is not possible to give a precise definition of the green econo -my. The United Nations (UN) state the following in the first pre -pa ratory document for the Rio+20 Conference: “The green econ-omy approach seeks, in principle, to unite under a sin gle bannerthe entire suite of economic policies and modes of economicanal yses of relevance to sustainable development. In practice, thiscovers a rather broad range of literature and analysis, often withsomewhat different starting points” (UN Secretary-General 2010,

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28

n his book Planet Dialectics,Wolfgang Sachs (1999) called the con-cept of sustainable development an oxymoron, given the fact that

the concrete meaning of the term has always varied. The con-cept has served very different interests and policies and has triedto square the circle, i. e., “how can we protect nature while keep-ing on competing and growing economically?“ (Sachs 1999, xii).In the following, and in light of the approaching United NationsConference on SustainableDevelopment(UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro,I argue that the concept of a green economy might be the nextoxymoron.

Green economy seems to have the potential to become the newleading strategy in political discourse – like sustainable develop -ment in Rio 1992. Looking back, it becomes clear that the conceptof sustainable development was a political strategy of global envi -ronment and resource management, of ecological modernizationand – at least at the beginning – an attempt to reconcile environ -mental problems with those of development. It was, right after1989, part of a prevailing optimism that global problems couldbe solved cooperatively. However, sustainable development hasfailed because of the absence of relevant socio-economic actorsneeded to significantly push this strategy; the “brown economy”has thus remained dominant. The worldwide use of resources,ecosystems, and sinks has dramatically increased within the last20 years (Rockström et al. 2009, Haberl et al. 2011). Sustainable

Contact: Prof.Dr. Ulrich Brand | University of Vienna | Department of PoliticalScience | Universitätsstr. 7/2 | 1010 Vienna | Austria | Tel.: +43 1 427749452 |E-Mail: ulrich.brand@univie.ac.at

©2012 U. Brand; licensee oekom verlag.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

I

Green Economy – the Next Oxymoron? No Lessons Learned from Failures of Implementing Sustainable Development

GAIA 21/1(2012): 28–32 | Keywords: environmental politics, imperial mode of living, implementation failure, Rio+20

The concept of a green economy has become the new buzz word in sustainability discourses, particularly in light of the Rio+20 Conference. Because of the current economic crisis and the perception that sustainability politics cannot be

implemented efficiently, politicians have set their hopes on greening the economy.However, there are major problems with the aims and strategies linked to thisconcept. Specifically, if political, economical, and cultural constraints are notconsid ered, green economy strategies will not be successful in their goals to endenvironmental degradation and reducing poverty.

Ulrich Brand

Green Economy – the Next Oxymoron?No Lessons Learned from Failures of Implementing Sustainable Development

p.15, cf. also Röhr 2011). The concept of a green economy is, likesustainable development, rather an oxymoron which intends tobundle different, partly contradictory, interests and strategies,and gives them a certain legitimacy and coherence.

Recently, several studies suggest that the economic and eco-logical crisis can be overcome by fostering a green economy. TheUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) started its GreenEconomy Initiative and stated: “The recent traction for a greeneconomy concept has no doubt been aided by widespread disil-lusionment with our prevailing economic paradigm, a sense offatigue emanating from the many concurrent crises and marketfailures experienced during the very first decade of the new mil-lennium, including especially the financial and economic crisisof 2008. But at the same time, we have seen increasing evidence

of a way forward, a new economic paradigm – one in which ma-terial wealth is not delivered perforce at the expense of growingenvironmental risks, ecological scarcities and social disparities”(UNEP 2011, p. 1).

The European Commission (2010) attempted to develop a planfor sustainable growth: the promotion of a resource-light, ecolog -i cal, and competitive economy. Furthermore, in a communica-tion from September 2011, the Commission considered it nec-essary to fundamentally transform the European economy withinthe time span of one generation. Reducing resource use and in-creasing resource efficiency are seen as key mechanisms for cop-ing with environmental problems and resource shortages and,at the same time, strengthening European competitiveness (Eu-ropean Commission 2011).

The EU Commission’s plan is largely in line with the GreenGrowth Strategy of the Organisation for Economic Co-operationand Development (OECD), which focused on mutually reinforc-ing aspects of economic and environmental policy and stressesinnovation as a means to decouple growth from natural capitaldepletion (OECD 2011).

Finally, the United Nations Department of Economic and So-cial Affairs (UNDESA) argues for a great green technological trans-formation by scaling up clean technologies, waste reduction, andsustainable farming. It sees that the concept of a green economy“embodies the promise of a new development paradigm, whoseapplication has the potential to ensure the preservation of theearth’s ecosystem along new economic growth pathways whilecontributing at the same time to poverty reduction” (UN DESA2011, v).

Was this not – more or less exactly – the wording 20 years agowhen the term “sustainable development” was first promoted?At that time the focus was not so much on economic growth but

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29FORUMFOCUS: RIO+20 – 20 YEARS AFTER THE EARTH SUMMIT

rather, since the publishing of the Brundtland Report in 1987(World Commission on Environment and Development 1987),on the widely held assumption that economic growth was the ba-sis for sustainable development. Today, strategy papers of impor -tant institutions can be read as offering the world an option in themidst of an economic crisis: green growth and green economy.a

Problem Diagnoses

The problem diagnoses of the green economy contributions arequite similar: the dominant paradigm of economic and social de-velopment becomes problematic given the impossibility of thebusiness-as-usual scenario and the globalization of resource-in-

tensive Western production and consumption patterns. Also, theneoclassical argument that prices for products do not reflect the“true” environmental costs is often used. At the same time, thenecessity of (lenient) political regulations is acknowledged: notev ery situation lends itself to market instruments. In certain cas-es, well-designed regulation, active technology-support policies,and voluntary approaches may be more appropriate or an impor -tant complement to market instruments (OECD 2011, p. 12).

The goals and strategies are also common: a low-carbon econ-omy, resource efficiency, green investments, technological inno -vation and more recycling, green jobs, poverty eradication, andsocial inclusion. Special emphasis is given to an adequate polit-ical framework. The UN Secretary-General (2010, pp.15f.) sum -ma rizes political strategies towards a green economy:

adjust prices to reflect the internalization of external costs,encourage sustainable consumption, and implement policies that promote the greening of business and markets more broadly;implement tax reforms that support environmentally-friendly and sustainable practices;expand public support for sustainable, more energy-efficient infrastructural development to conserve and boost natural capital;enhance research and development programs focused ongreen technologies (e. g., clean energy);target public investment to create programs and forge alliances that promote self-sufficient ecologically and socially-sound economic development, andimplement policies that harmonize social goals with existing or future economic policies. >

Green economy will not effectively address the problems of environmental degradation and poverty and will not deal with the necessary development of new understandings and forms of wealth.

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30 Ulrich BrandFORUM

All the studies and strategy papers seem to consider economicgrowth as desirable and necessary. But what is usually described,is the potential of a green economy, whereas the obstacles andop posing interests are hardly addressed. There is a belief, akin tothe beginning of the sustainable development discourse 20 yearsago, that comprehensive win-win situations should be promoted.And there is firm trust in existing political and economic institu -tions and elites that are able and willing to guide this process. Cor-respondingly, gender perspectives and their focus on social repro-duction and reproductive work are largely absent in the debateabout a green economy (Röhr 2011, Wichterich 2011).

Structural Constraints to a Green Economy

There are curious parallels between the debates 20 years ago andtoday. One important global development that was overlookedin the 1990s was the growing role of military conflict in the worldthat, at least in part, was driven by resource competition (cf. Lan-der 2011, p.5). Only 16 months before the first Rio conference in1992, the Second Gulf War took place. But this was not at all anissue in Rio. The militarization of world politics has deepened

since then. Another aspect that was downplayed around 1992 wasthe intensification of liberal globalization with an enormous in-crease in the use of resources and the burdening of sinks. TheUruguayRound of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT)moved towards the consolidation of liberal globalization and theestablishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.Again these developments were not included in the Rio delibera -tions. Today, problems of liberal globalization are considered, butit remains an open question as to whether the related (dominant)economic and political forces can be weakened. However, we facea new historical situation which reflects structural constraints tothe ambitious proposals of a green economy.

Scepticism

As previously stated, the upcoming debate about a green econo -my prior to Rio+20 can be seen as the attempt to reformulate sus -tainability. In the following I highlight some structural elementsthat have in some way impeded the implementation of truly sus-tainable changes and therefore need to be considered – and whichshould be changed if the necessary socio-ecological transforma-tion is to be taken seriously. The assumption of the following ar -gument is that there is a certain and empirically evident scepti-

cism that the stated aims of a green economy cannot be realized.This scepticism rests on: 1. existing – and even slightly changed – political strategies

including the orientation of national states towards globalcompetitiveness and geopolitical interests as well as the promotion of free trade by powerful international institutions;

2. economic institutions like the capitalist market and the profit-driven development of technologies which in principle do not promote sustainability;

3. dominant societal orientations like growth at any cost andthe increasing exploitation of nature; and

4. power relations under the dominance of elites who aim tomaintain their status.

First, with the emergence of countries like China, India, andBrazil as strong and self-conscious economies, we observe in factnew geopolitical rivalries for scarce resources. The Chinese gov-ernment, for example, prohibited the export of certain rare min-erals in order to push up prices and use them for production pro -cesses in China. The EU is promoting its resource-light Eu rope2020Strategy, and the European Commission (2011) refers explic -itly to growing resource competition. I do not see this as a driv-ing force for a progressive reconfiguration of society-nature re-lations in light of the problems of environmental degradationdespite the fact that geopolitical rivalry might lead in some cas-es to technological innovation.

Second, the proposals to promote a green economy demandstrong regulatory frameworks. However, the existing regulatoryframeworks mainly promote unsustainable production and con-sumption practices. Economic and political strategies focus onthe cheap and stable availability of resources. And on the nation -al and international level, financial and economic policies are usu-ally more powerful than environmental policies. Up to now, theplea for an adequate regulatory framework seems blind againstdominant power relations. Moreover, in the current crisis, regu -latory frameworks tend to develop in an authoritarian directionto secure access to resources for particular countries or regions.

Third, the notion of a green economy in most analyses and strat-egy papers also means “green” growth. Especially since 2008, pol -icies are heavily concerned with the maintenance of economicgrowth and employment. Unsustainable growth in capitalist so-cieties secures not only profits for the owners of assets and jobsfor wage earners but it also constitutes the tax base of the state.We saw in 2008 and 2009 that crisis strategies did not go handin hand with the reorientation of production and consumptionpatterns. A severe conflict exists due to the fact that business asusual strategies and official crisis management do not function.

Fourth, liberal politics of open markets and fierce competitionhave led to deindustrialization in many countries of the globalSouth. What is reasonable from a neoclassical perspective – pro-

The concept of a green economy seems to promise an attractive orientationout of the crisis of neoliberalism.

31FORUMFOCUS: RIO+20 – 20 YEARS AFTER THE EARTH SUMMIT

>

The danger is that strategies of a green economy are going to berealized at the expense of other sectors and regions, e.g., the in-crease of renewable forms of energy at the cost of destructivepalm oil production in Indonesia or biofuels in Brazil. The im-portant questions are: What are the dynamics behind a selectivegreening of the economy? Whose interests are at stake? Whoseinterests are excluded or even repressed? Which forms of exclu-sion will be linked to a green economy?

I do not argue not to use natural resources at all (for a differ-entiated account, cf. Gudynas 2011) or to ask resource-rich coun-tries not to export elements of nature as inputs for economic pro -cesses and well-being in other parts of the world. The point is toask under what conditions a greening of an economy takes place,which societal interests are strengthened, and which understand -ing of the economy and well-being is promoted.

Another crucial question is whether the concept of a greeneconomy and related strategies develop not only political-institu -tional but also an economic coherence. Will the interests in re-

duction that takes place where it is most efficient – has pushedmany countries into the new old strategy of resource extractiv -ism (Svampa and Antonelli 2009, Gudynas 2011). In most coun-tries in Latin America, even in Brazil and in Mexico, this seemsto be the only viable development strategy to alleviate poverty.For example, the US-dependent maquiladora industry1 of Mex-ico lost its competitive advantage with the accession of China tothe WTO in 2000. Today, most economic dynamics in Mexico takeplace in the mining sector. Resource extraction is the other sideof the coin for a resource-intense economy in industrialized andindustrializing countries. And it is the other side of the greeneconomy since precious metals for high-tech products mostlycome from countries of the South.

Finally, beside the universalization of a Western model of produc-tion, globalization implies what can be called an “imperial modeof living” (Brand and Wissen 2012). Globalized liberal marketsare inscribed in everyday practices in which the access to cheap

labor and often unsustainably produced goods are normal ized.This is not particularly disputed in the crisis and is actually uni-versalizing among the global upper and middle classes (Kent andMyers 2004, Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie 2005).

Prospects

Some observers argue that strategies of a green economy are go-ing to meet the same fate as sustainable development, i. e., to re -main something for policy talks and not gain momentum (e.g.,Brunnengräber and Haas 2011). I am not so sure: A selectivegreening of the economy is already taking place. However, giventhe outlined constraints, it is probable that a green economy willbe realized in a highly selective manner sectorally and regionally,that it will not effectively address the problems of environmentaldegradation and poverty, and that it will not deal with the neces -sa ry development of new understandings and forms of wealth.

GAIA 21/1(2012): 28–32 | www.oekom.de/gaia

1 A maquiladora is a manufacturing operation in which a factory importsmate rials and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly,processing, or manufacturing, and then re-exports the product.

2 Some prefer to talk more explicitly about “green capitalism” (Kaufmann and Müller 2009).

search and development, production industries, and the finan cial sector

be strong enough to counter the “brown industries” and related

political forces? Or will there be compromises between the brown and the green

industries and between capital and labor organizations that

imply, in a sense, a “green corporatism”? Is the promise of

skills for green jobs, at least in some countries and branches, attractive and viable?

Therefore, one should not downplay a specific function of theconcept of a green economy: given its broad meaning, it mightorient manifold and specific strategies – i. e., to function as anoxymoron or, as Edgardo Lander (2011, p.1) puts it, have “a tran-quilizing dispositive” to silence doubt and criticisms (Arkonadaand Santillana 2011).2

If my arguments about structural constraints are taken serious -ly, and if my normative position – the necessity to effectively dealwith questions of wealth and social justice, environmental degra-dation, and poverty – is acknowledged, then it is not enough tocreate adequate governance mechanisms to avoid resource con-flicts, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or to stop the erosionof biodiversity. These have already been reflected in the era of sus -tainable development (Conca et al. 2008, Brand and Görg 2008).The underlying drivers of unsustainable production and con-sumption patterns need to be reshaped (Biesecker and Hofmeis-ter 2006). A first step is to acknowledge those drivers.

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32 Ulrich BrandFORUM

Ulrich Brand

Born 1967 in Konstanz, Germany. Studies in businessadminis tration and political science. Doctorate in 2000,

habilitation in 2006. Chair of International Politics at Vienna University. Expert member of the Enquete

Commission “Growth, Well-Being and Quality of Life” of the German Bundestag. Main research areas: critical state and governance

studies, global environmental and resource politics, financialization of nature.3 www.etcgroup.org

Who Controls the Green Economy?

A second step should be to link the debate about the drivers andstructural forces with questions of democracy. This means notonly considering actual problems of participation, but it alsomeans asking who decides today about the dominant and mainlyproblematic norms of production and consumption; about formsof mobility and communication, housing and cities, agricultureand food; and about overall development paths. ETC Group3, anongovernmental organization, asks “Who controls the greeneconomy?” and names many companies which are already con-trolling and intend to expand control over renewable energy pro-duction, agriculture and food production, and the health sector.

The current constellation is quite open. It is not clear whichdirection socioeconomic processes will take. This creates spacefor more fundamental alternatives constructed around the fol-lowing issues: democratizing control over society-nature rela-tions – instead of leaving this control to unleashed market forces,equit able access to the earth’s resources and sinks – instead of theexternalization of ecological costs from the global North to theglobal South and from wealthier social groups to those that aremarginalized, strengthening the notion of sufficiency – insteadof focusing primarily on efficiency, linking questions and prac-tices of decoupling with a comprehensive and democratic under -standing of wealth, well-being and social quality and not focus-ing on economic growth, and considering alternative experiences,approaches, and concepts in other regions of the world, i. e., incountries like Bolivia or Ecuador with their attempts to acknowl-edge and strengthen different approaches to nature and society’srelation to it. Given the depletion of resources, the overloadingof sinks, and the increase of socioecological conflicts on variousspatial scales, the conditions to pursue these issues and to politi-cize them successfully seem to be given.

I would like to thank Markus Wissen and three anonymous reviewers for usefulcomments as well as Wendy Godek and Hanna Lichtenberger for editorial support.

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Submitted October 11, 2011; revised version accepted November 26, 2011.